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August 29, 2007

Antimail

Dear Mailers:

The purpose of themail is to be about “life, government, or politics in the District of Columbia,” as the sign-off item at the end of each issue says. I certainly don’t want themail to become self-referential, filled with messages that comment only on themail itself. Therefore, I’ll resist the temptation to reply a second time to criticisms of themail below by Bill Coe, Peter Turner, and Larry Seftor.

I will write, however, about how debates about political and public issues are carried out in democracies. Strong champions of particular politicians or policies point out all the good things about them; strong critics of those politicians and policies point out all the bad things about them; and the majority of people, who are in the middle, undecided, or don’t have strong opinions about those politicians or policies, evaluate the partisans’ arguments and make their own decisions. Coe, Turner, and Seftor are strong champions of Mayor Fenty, his school takeover plan, and his chosen Chancellor, Ms. Rhee. That’s fine by me and, since themail is an open forum, they are free to use it to sing their praises. They are out of bounds, however, when they demand that there be no criticism of Mayor Fenty, his school takeover, or Chancellor Rhee, or when they try to insist upon unstinting and unrelieved praise of them.

I have not been critical of the mayoral takeover of the schools because I applauded the performance of the Board of Education, as Mr. Turner inaccurately charges. No one who has actually read what I wrote about the Board over the years would believe that. On the contrary, I have often been critical of the Board’s actions and inaction. What I have supported is the principle of citizens’ democratic control of the schools through a directly elected Board. It’s simple: when a democratically elected body doesn’t perform well, the remedy is not to dissolve that body, but for the citizens to exercise their ultimate supervisory role and to elect new and different members to it. If that weren't true, Congress should have dissolved DC's entire home rule government in the 1990's, instead of appointing a temporary Control Board. Similarly, I have never expressed “an ugly desire for the mayor’s new Chancellor, Ms. Rhee, to fail,” as Mr. Coe maliciously fantasizes. On the contrary, I have always expressed the hope that she would succeed, but that doesn’t mean that I, or anyone, should refrain completely from judging her performance.

Every new administration in this city has thought early on that Dorothy and I should support it uncritically, because each new administration pictured itself as reformers, as the good guys, in contrast to the corrupt bad guys in the administration it replaced. But each new administration, instead of eliminating back-office, closed-door deals, has done those deals with its friends, instead of with the friends of the previous administration. That isn’t reform; it’s just performing the same play with a different cast. Dorothy and I have always hoped for the best from new administrations and new councilmembers, and viewed them with no partisan or personal animus. But that doesn’t mean that we have given or will give anyone a free pass, or refrain from exposing them when they make mistakes or do worse.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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Why Fire the Chief Engineer?
Ronni Glaser, ronni_glaser@msn.com 

I've been traveling and maybe this has been covered and I missed it, but I just heard the city let John Deatrick go as Chief Engineer. Anybody have any insight into this? Seems to me Mr. Deatrick did more to to reform the image of DDOT as a professional design and construction organization than anyone in memory.

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DC Disparity and Fiscal Incompetence
Dennis Moore, dennis@dcindependents.org

The headline blasts the newest revelation that many of us already know and live as a reality in the District: “Wealth gap widens as whites hit $89K, blacks take in $34K” (http://www.examiner.com/a-905206~Wealth_gap_widens_as_whites_hit__89K__blacks_take_in__34K.html). Of course, as our city’s fiscal foundation continues to sink in debt and more families quietly flee, our mayor and DC council grin, spin, and photo-op their way through another year of third-rate governance. We, as supported by recent data from the US Census Bureau, are not amused.

Anyone who hasn’t made the connection between the ongoing fiscal incompetence, brain-dead District governance, act-like-you-know leadership, and the true economic state of DC is either insane or purposely in denial. A budget busting baseball stadium, a failing convention center, more condos, and the usual slate of shortsighted economic initiatives that benefit the few over the many are coming home to roost. Once again our dirty socioeconomic laundry is hanging high for all to see. The dream of a family-friendly city is a genuine nightmare for nearly 80 percent of D.C. residents, according to the report. Promises made are often promises never kept by most of the taxpayer-funded incompetents we keep electing. As more of us become economically bruised and broken, the able among us leave our school system, shop more outside the District, seek jobs there, and eventually move out altogether. That’s the true tale of our city, and our elected local officials are the authors.

Urban Economics 101: supporting and expanding a mixed-income family friendly city generates exponential revenue and other socioeconomic benefits that strengthen the city’s fiscal foundation. The next time you stroll DC after the suburban commuters and tourists have left for the day, beyond the occasional sound of gunfire, ask why does so much of our city have this dead-dull quiet feeling in the late afternoon and weekends. Where have all the families, rhythm, energy and future of the city gone? According to the US Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/p60-233.pdf) the answers are in the better-governed counties of Maryland, Virginia, and beyond.

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School Enrollment and School Facilities
Kevin Morison, Morisonfamily@starpower.net

Like Len Sullivan (“The New School Team: Good on Photo Ops, but Avoiding the First Order Terms?,” themail, August 26), I, too, am very interested to see what the enrollment figures will be for DCPS this year. Beyond the overall total, however, I am also eager to see the distribution of exactly where those children are enrolled. Comparing the total enrollment figures with the total number of school buildings citywide is useful to a point, but it can also mask some interesting and important trends at the neighborhood level. In upper Northwest the elementary schools are literally bursting at the seams. To accommodate the influx of students, both Lafayette and Murch added “mobile classrooms” (trailers) this fall, something that Janney did a few years ago and still has. My point is this: in looking at the facilities needs of DCPS, Mr. Lew and his team need to analyze and carefully consider these localized trends.

Regardless of who is in charge at North Capitol Street, the public schools in upper Northwest have succeeded academically and will likely continue to succeed. Those schools have the test scores — and, I believe, the enrollment figures — to prove that. My question: will the new DCPS leadership display the political will to expand the schools in those parts of town where enrollment is skyrocketing, while "right sizing" in neighborhoods where enrollment continues to decline?

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Water Bills Aren’t Washed Up
James Treworgy, jamietree@yahoo.com

Take a look at the detail of your bill. Water is billed in units called CCFs. A CCF is 100 cubic feet or 748 gallons. This is a lot of water. In any given single month, a residential user probably only goes through somewhere between two and three CCFs.

Since the meter is always read in whole units, you will frequently get bills that are identical or different by the cost of a single unit. Assuming you use about the same amount of water each month, whether you get billed for x or y units just depends on how close to the threshold of the next unit you were at the time the reading was taken. So stop hanging WASA out to dry — there’s nothing fishy going on here.

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Affordable Housing the Fenty Way
Roy R. Stewart, Jr., roy.stewart2@verizon.net

We often hear Mayor Fenty speak of affordable housing, but we do not know what affordable housing is according to Fenty.

Every time I attempt to get the Fenty administration to define for me what its concept of affordable housing is, all I get back is a brief letter stating: to make more housing available to all Washingtonians. This does not answer the question.

Is the phrase “affordable housing” just a politically correct and convenient catch phrase for Fenty, just as "smart growth" and others are?

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Hear! Hear!
Bill Coe, bceedeec@aol.com

Allow me to commend the comments made by Messrs. Nevitt and Seftor in themail of August 27. They are correct in fact as well as opinion, and I second their emotion.

It has long been evident to me that Mr. Imhoff can’t get past his disappointment over Mayor Fenty’s takeover of DC’s schools. Imhoff has dropped all pretense of doing journalism and begun expressing an ugly desire for the mayor’s new Chancellor, Ms. Rhee, to fail. The criminal failures of the previous school-governance system do not move him to consider the value of a wholly new approach — nor apparently do the catastrophic results, should the mayor’s management be no better. He just keeps lobbing brickbats — to the dismay of any fair-minded person with a material stake in the success of DC’s public schools.

Until lately, all this was merely unhelpful and wrongheaded. When, however, themail suggests that local voters should not participate in elections which its editor happens to think are unimportant, then this publication moves to the fringe and makes itself truly irrelevant. I will continue to receive and read themail, because for me it’s a source of information and some amusement, but I see no way a serious reader can take seriously what its publicists have to say.

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Back to Reality
Peter Turner, felinehostage@yahoo.com

I continue to be astonished at the lack of recognition by the editors of this list of the enormous incompetence (or whatever you may call it) on the part of the DC school board in allowing the schools of this city to deteriorate to the extent they have with one of the highest per student spending levels in the country. As August 27’s Washington Post editorial states: “The District’s public schools open their doors today after an unprecedented summer of repairs. Improvements have been made in the condition of many buildings, and city officials should be applauded. It’s difficult, though, to forget the incompetence and neglect that led to the disgraceful state of the schools — or to overlook the hard reality that much more work still needs to be done” [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/26/AR2007082600971.html].

In this list for the past I lost count how many issues, Mayor Fenty, Michelle Rhee, Allen Lew, and anyone else connected with the current administration has been endlessly berated for their efforts. As the Post reports, Allen Lew has led the effort to repair 71 of the system’s 141 schools and athletic fields at a cost of around $80 million. The editorial states., “[O]ne principal was near tears in surveying the new look of his school is powerful testimony to the hurts inflicted by decrepit surroundings. It’s wonderful that some children finally will be going to schools that have working water fountains and toilets but a disgrace that such basics were absent so long.”

It is now apparent that the DC school board was at best ineffective and at worst almost criminally incompetent, considering the school system’s well documented large budget and astonishingly high failure and dropout rates. The one-sided ranting on this list demonizing the District’s leaders would be easier to listen to if it were more (dare I say) balanced in weighing the positive achievements with other aspects that clearly deserve people’s attention.

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Gary Applies the Wrong Standard
Larry Seftor, Ward 3, larry underscore seftor .them757 at zoemail.net

Gary, I’m not suggesting that Michelle Rhee’s performance should not be evaluated. However, as one who has both worked as a senior professional and monitored the work of other senior professionals, I can assure you that you are applying the wrong methodology. You suggest that Mr. Rhee’s supervisors (apparently including yourself) should “tell (Ms. Rhee) as early as possible when (she) make(s) a mistake or do(es) something wrong.” This approach certainly applies to lower level staff who have specific duties. Senior professionals, on the other hand, are evaluated on whether they meet established goals, within an established time frame, within established parameters (such as the obvious one that all actions must be legal and ethical). There is certainly a role for public discourse about the goals, time frames, and parameters (such as budget) established for Ms. Rhee. However, there should be no public debate about what she did this morning to get there. The point of my posting is that too little time has passed to perform an evaluation of Ms. Rhee’s performance. Carping, while perhaps fun for the carper, is just diverting Ms. Rhee’s attention from the job at hand.

The Post, in a story about UDC this week, stated that 80 percent of the entering class “need remedial math, reading or both when they enter as freshmen.” If these represent the college-bound students from DC schools, then the percentage of graduates who are functionally uneducated is higher than 80 percent. This is not Michelle Rhee’s fault. It is the fault of you, Gary, and me, and everyone else who is part of the DC status quo. She was brought in as an agent of change and, by definition, she is going to do things that people are not going to like. Given the failing performance of the school system, we should all get out of her way.

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

All About Credit, August 30
Michelle Phipps-Evans, michelle.phipps-evans@dc.gov

The DC Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking (DISB) and the Business Division of the DC Public Library present All About Credit, a seminar led by a financial advisor who will discuss the keys to using credit wisely, first-time credit, women and credit, improving your credit score and what you should know before applying for a credit card. Come out this Thursday, August 30, at 3 p.m. at the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW, Main Hall. For more questions, call 727-1171 or 442-7822.

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Hot Movie Hits, September 4-25
Randi Blank, randi.blank@dc.gov

Tuesdays, September 4-25, 6:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW, Room A-5. Hot movie hits. September 4, The Fifth Element (1997), Rated PG-13; September 11, Disturbia (2007), Rated PG-13; September 18, Wild Hogs (2007), Rated PG-13; and September 25, Blades of Glory (2007), Rated PG-13.

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CLASSIFIEDS — RECOMMENDATIONS

Computer Problems
Job Dittbener, Jobotto@hotmail.com

I need suggestions or recommendations for service for data recovery for a Mac-formatted external hard drive; the hard drive is unrecognized or corrupt. This is important for a young filmmaker. Much smaller PC problem: the PC on-off button is broken.

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